THE ORIGIN OF NOTHING...
CAN YOU THINK OF SOMETHING THAT IS EVERYTHING AND NOTHING, ALL AT ONCE? SOMETHING THAT HOLDS A NEUTRAL VALUE, IN THIS WORLD FULL OF NEGATIVES AND POSITIVES? SOMETHING WHICH IS NULL IN ITSELF, BUT ADDS A TREMENDOUS VALUE WHEN JOINED TO SOMETHING? YES! YOU GUESSED IT RIGHT. WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THE FASCINATING NUMBER “ZERO”. ITS SYMBOL, AS WE ALL KNOW IS DENOTED AS “0”. IT ACTS AS AN ADDITIVE IDENTITY OF ALL THE ALGEBRAIC STRUCTURES AND IT FULFILLS A CENTRAL ROLE IN MATHEMATICS. NOW, MANY PEOPLE ASK THE QUESTION “WHAT IS ZERO?” BUT ISN’T THE REAL THING THAT WE SHOULD ASK ABOUT “WHAT IS THE STORY BEHIND ZERO?”
ZERO WAS INVENTED IN THE 5TH CENTURY, DOESN’T IT MAKE YOU WONDER HOW THE WORLD OF MATHEMATICS WAS BEFORE IT? THEY WERE STILL ABLE TO COUNT THE KAURAVAS TO 100, CALCULATIONS WERE STILL DONE BEYOND THE NUMBER 9. THE VALUE OF TENS STILL EXISTED BEFORE ZERO CAME INTO EXISTENCE, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BEING THAT THERE WERE DISTINCT SYMBOLS AND WORDS FOR THE VALUE OF NUMBERS THAT HAVE ZEROES IN THEM IN TODAY’S WORLD.
SOME OF THEM ARE AS FOLLOWS IN THE TABLE BELOW:
DUE TO THIS SYSTEM THE WRITING AND REMEMBERING OF BIG NUMBERS WAS A TEDIOUS TASK. FOR EXAMPLE, IF SOMEONE WANTED TO WRITE “8732”, THEY HAD TO WRITE “MMMMMMMMDCCXXXII”. AT THE TIME INDIANS KNEW 9 NUMBERS TO PERFORM CALCULATIONS WITH, BUT ROMANS ONLY HAD 7. LARGE-SCALE CALCULATIONS WERE POSSIBLE YET LIMITED TO A CERTAIN EXTENT. MATHEMATICAL BREAKTHROUGHS WERE ON HOLD FOR THE TIME BEING AS OPERATIONS, MULTIPLICATION, DIVISION, TRIGONOMETRY, ETC. IT SEEMED DIFFICULT TO CARRY OUT.
BUT THE YEAR 476 A.D. IS WHEN HUMANITY WAS ABOUT TO TAKE A HUGE LEAP IN THE FIELD OF MATHEMATICS AS IT WAS THE BIRTH YEAR OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST MATHEMATICIANS IN INDIA, ARYABHATTA I. HE WAS THE ONE WHO FIGURED OUT A WAY TO ELIMINATE THESE HINDRANCES BY INTRODUCING ANOTHER NUMBER TO BE USED ALONG WITH THE NUMBERS 1-9 WHICH WAS “0”.
HIS CONTRIBUTION WAS MUCH MORE THAN OF A MERE NUMBER. INITIALLY, IT WAS USED AS A PLACEHOLDER AND IN ALGORITHMS FOR FINDING THE SQUARE AND CUBE ROOTS IN THE SANSKRIT TREATISES. HE ALSO DISCOVERED THEORIES OF SOLAR SYSTEM ROTATION, APPROXIMATION OF PI, TRIGONOMETRY, ETC. HE’S RIGHTFULLY CALLED THE FATHER OF INDIAN MATHEMATICS. IT WAS 48 YEARS AFTER ARYABHATTA’S DEATH (A.D. 628) THAT MATHEMATICIAN BRAHMAGUPTA WAS BORN, WHO TAUGHT BASIC AS WELL AS COMPLEX CALCULATIONS TO THE WORLD USING ZERO. HIS CONTRIBUTION INCLUDED SIMPLE PROPERTIES OF ZERO, SUCH AS, ‘1-0=1’, ‘1 x 0=0’, ETC. AND FORMULAS THAT DISCUSSED THE AREA OF CYCLIC QUADRILATERAL USING RATIONAL SIDES. HE ALSO AUTHORED MANY BOOKS REGARDING MATHEMATICS AND ASTRONOMY, SOME OF THEM BEING ‘Durkeamynarda’ (672 A.D.), ‘Khandakhadyaka’ (665 A.D.), ‘Brahmasphutasiddhanta’ (628 A.D.) and ‘Cadamakela’ (624 A.D.).
IN THE 12TH CENTURY, BHASKARAACHARYA II GAVE US THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PROPERTY OF ZERO, WHICH IS ‘ANY NUMBER DIVIDED BY ZERO AMOUNTS TO INFINITY.’ WHAT MAKES THIS PROPERTY BRAIN-SCRATCHING IS THAT ‘INFINITY’ ISN’T A NUMBER ,BUT ACTUALLY A CONCEPT.
